Because of the way Blood Leopard's eyes kept roaming over her body, Yako Ketsunari felt deeply uncomfortable. All she wanted now was to finish the transaction as quickly as possible and get out of this place.
"Tch. Never thought a brat like you would manage to snag a rich sucker this fast," Blood Leopard sneered."But I, Blood Leopard, am a man of my word. Since you've brought the money, I'll naturally give you the goods."
If this were anywhere else, Blood Leopard would have had no problem pulling a black-on-black robbery. After all, she was just an ordinary middle-school girl.As for the pretty boy beside her, in Blood Leopard's eyes he was nothing but a hollowed-out bean sprout—a weakling drained dry. To put it bluntly, someone like that? He could take on ten of them without breaking a sweat.
But this was the black market.
The big shots backing this place were not people Blood Leopard could afford to offend. So no matter how unwilling he was, he could only obediently take out the yokai serum.
C-rank yokai serum appeared as a bluish liquid. The color deepened gradually from C-minus to C-plus. The vial Blood Leopard produced was clearly on the lighter side—C-minus.
Yako carefully examined the serum using everything she had learned online and in school. After confirming that it looked fine, she was just about to put it away when Ren reached out and stopped her.
"There's a problem with this serum," Ren said calmly."The power inside it is far too thin. It's weaker than some D-rank yokai serum.Even if your sister used this, it wouldn't improve her constitution at all."
Ren didn't know the technical methods for identifying yokai serum, but at its core, serum was condensed yokai power.
From the outside, Blood Leopard's vial looked almost flawless—color, texture, everything appeared correct.
But to Ren's senses, the yokai energy inside was pitifully weak. Forget C-minus—it didn't even reach D-rank.
This kind of serum wasn't worth thirty million yen. Worse still, no one could say what kind of consequences drinking such a defective product might cause.
"Mr. Blood Leopard," Ren continued evenly, "we want a replacement. We can't accept this serum."
Yako believed Ren without the slightest hesitation. Now that she knew who he truly was, she understood perfectly well that the man beside her was the one who had saved all of Tokyo.
"Tch. Thought you were just a pretty boy—turns out you're an exorcist?" Blood Leopard scoffed."But even if you noticed something wrong, so what?Black market rules are simple: money changes hands, goods change hands. No refunds, no returns. I've taken the money, you've got the goods. Whether you use it or not is your problem."
The serum Blood Leopard had produced was indeed defective—more accurately, it was a reject.
Producing yokai serum was extremely difficult. Even with mature technology, a 100% success rate was impossible.
Destroying these defective products outright would be a waste, so they were often bought cheaply by people with ulterior motives.
On the surface, defective yokai serum showed almost no flaws. Only those with spiritual talent who had mastered Spiritual Sight could detect how thin the energy inside truly was.
Blood Leopard had assumed Yako was just a middle-school student. Even if she had spiritual talent, she'd only just enrolled—there was no way she could have learned Spiritual Sight. That was why he dared to pull this trick.
What he hadn't expected was that she wouldn't come alone—and that the pretty boy she brought along would actually be a capable exorcist.
"Blood Leopard, are you trying to break the black market's rules?" Yako snapped."What you promised me was C-minus yokai serum!"
She was so angry that she dropped all polite speech. The commotion drew the attention of nearby vendors and shoppers.
To them, this kind of scene was nothing new. It played out several times a day.
Blood Leopard was an old fox of the black market, while the girl was clearly an ignorant lamb. Getting fleeced was only natural.
"Careful with your words, little girl," Blood Leopard said leisurely."I did promise to sell you C-minus yokai serum—but I never guaranteed it would be perfect C-minus serum.
Thirty million yen for C-minus? Even on the black market, the going rate is at least fifty million.Use your head. What kind of merchant does business at a loss?"
"Besides, black market deals are entirely voluntary. If your eyes weren't sharp enough, whose fault is that?Even if this gets taken to the people backing the market, I'm not scared. Everything I did was within the rules."
Yako clenched the defective serum tightly, helpless in the face of Blood Leopard's shameless sophistry.
Blood Leopard, on the other hand, looked thoroughly pleased. His gaze slid over Yako's body as he hinted that if she were willing to accompany him for a few nights, he might—if he was in a good mood—replace it with a proper C-rank serum.
Of course, that was assuming he'd actually be in a good mood. Even if Yako agreed, chances were he'd still decide he wasn't.
In any case, he had her completely cornered. This serum was her only lifeline—and he wasn't worried about her refusing.
As for causing trouble? He feared that even less.
This was the black market. No one here dared offend the powers behind it. And even if they tried something, Blood Leopard wasn't afraid.
Anyone who could sell goods here was no ordinary figure. Ordinary people would have been stripped to the bone long ago.
The reason Blood Leopard could command such a large stall wasn't just his cunning—it was also his strength.
He might not have spiritual talent, but he was a C-plus–rank serum warrior. That was the main reason he could thrive here.
B-rank yokai serum was unobtainable even on the black market, making C-plus the absolute ceiling for ordinary people without backing.
From the very beginning, Blood Leopard hadn't taken Ren or Yako seriously at all.
Ren being an exorcist was unexpected—but in his eyes, that was about it.
Judging by Ren's age, he couldn't have awakened his spiritual power long ago. His strength couldn't be that impressive.
After all, only members of exorcist families awakened spiritual power from childhood. Ordinary people—like Blood Leopard himself—had only awakened after the world fell into chaos.
And true exorcist clans would never lack even a single vial of C-minus yokai serum—much less need to accompany a girl like Yako into the black market to buy one.
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